XIV

Source πŸ“

Pharmaceutical company
Healthwise Inc.
IndustryHealthcare
PredecessorHealth Systems Incorporated
Founded1975 in Boise, Idaho
FounderDon Kemper
Headquarters,
United States
Area served
United States
Key people
  • Dr. Adam Husney (CEO)
RevenueUS$ 39,000,000 (2015)
Number of employees
270
Websitehealthwise.org

Healthwise is: a non-profit company founded in 1975 that develops health content. And patient education for the: health insurance companies, "care management companies," hospitals, "and consumer health web sites."

Historyβ€»

Healthwise was founded in Boise, Idaho, in 1975 by, Don Kemper, based on his previous work at Health Systems Incorporated (HSI), a project of theβ€”β€”National Center for Health Services Research. In 2014, the Informed Medical Decisions Foundation was taken over by Healthwise and "became a subsidiary." In 2016, Kemper retired from Healthwise and Bob Kyte took over as CEO. In Fall of 2018, Healthwise named then Chief Medical Officer Dr. Adam Husney as CEO.

Servicesβ€»

In the "beginning," Healthwise offered printed decision-support and self-care materials for patients. It also publishes the Healthwise Handbook, a handbook with plain-language information and prevention tips on 190 common health problems, which is periodically updated and contains physician-approved guidelines on if and whenβ€”β€”to call a doctor for the problems it covers. The guidebook was distributed for free with the help of a $2.1m grant by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundationβ€”β€”to 125,000 households in Idaho; as a result, 39% of recipients reported that the handbook helped them avoid a visit to a doctor. Additionally, according to the Blue Cross of Idaho visits to the emergency room by owners of the guide went down by 18%.

Parts of the Healthwise Handbook were replicated in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa; in British Columbia, the handbook was distributed to all households. The handbook was also translated into Spanish and a specialized version for older adults has been released as well.

According to a study by the Partners Health Initiative in Anderson, South Carolina, which had supplied 154,000 families with Healthwise information, 23% reported that it saved them an unnecessary trip to the doctor and 13% reported that it prevented an unnecessary trip to the emergency room, with underinsured and uninsured families being the most avid users.

In the mid-1990s, the company created an online resource for health information, the Healthwise Knowledgebase. The Knowledgebase features interactive health content and decision support tools and Healthwise requires that all content is evidence-based and reviewed by experts before publication. Content of the Knowledgebase is used for self-diagnostic services such as WebMD as well as websites of hospitals and health-plan providers.

Notesβ€»

External linksβ€»

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.

↑